Suppose you organized 20 conferences last semester and now wish to run conferences for mostly for the same teachers this semester. On Manage Conference you will find a new link to “Set up next semester of conferences using last semester as a template (to save time)” which takes you to a page which includes a tool called “Copy Schedule from One Conference to Others”. This will copy a Time Block Schedule from one conference to multiple others. Here’s how you use it: First, select one of your old conferences to serve as a schedule template. Go to the Time Blocks page for this conference. If there are old appointments, you’ll need to use “Delete All Appointments” to wipe them out. Then create the schedule you want for the new semester. Now you’re ready to go to the Manage Conferences page and click on the “Set up next semester of conferences using last semester as a template” link. You will be asked which conference you want to copy the schedule from: choose the template conference you edited. Next, you will be asked which conferences you want to copy the template schedule to: click on all 20 of your old conferences. Presto! Your conferences now have the new schedules–but all the old option selections (teacher emails, notification settings, etc.) just as they were last semester.

Most of our upgrades respond to user suggestions–as this one does–so please keep sending us your ideas for how we can provide enhanced convenience for you!

We have just installed a significant upgrade to PTCFast.com. The main focus is on helping those school administrators who organize many conferences at a single school. Here are some highlights of the additional features you will be seeing:

Faster Creation of Additional Conferences. When you create a new conference within an account, if you pick another conference to use as a template, it will ask seven short questions and copy all the rest of the information (not just Time Blocks) into the new conference. You’ve told us that most of the time, these seven items are all that need to be changed from one conference to another.

Batch Launching. In the past, administrators had to launch one conference at a time. Now, from the Manage page you can launch all of your conferences with a single click.

Overlapping Appointment Times. If your school needs to have multiple appointments at the same time, for example if you have “Team” conferences, who you can now create “overlapping” time blocks. For example, if there are three teachers per team, they can set up three sets of openings for each time.

Reduced Email Volume. We will now consolidate administrators’ Signup Reports rather than a separate email for each conference. Similarly, parents making several appointments will now receive a single email with their schedule instead of one email per appointment.

Breaks between Conferences. You can now specify gaps between appointments, for example, 15 minute appointments with 5 minutes between appointments.

Parents View of Appointments. When parents set up multiple appointments (whether for the same or different children) they see them all on their signup page (on the lefthand side of their screen) so they can see their schedule at a glance.

There are other improvements as well. As always, please keep in touch with your suggestions, and do let us know about your experiences with the system. We can be reached at suggestions@ptcfast.com and support@ptcfast.com.
Ed and Mike, founders

Today we have installed an upgrade to the system that responds to a number of requests from users—especially “power users” who are arranging numerous conferences.

Better Access to Overviews of Multiple Conferences. On Manage page, you will find expanded report services.   “Display list of conferences and conference information” offers you two types of handy reports that you can view or print: (1) a list of your conference names and choices for reports/deadlines associated with each conference, or (2) a list of conference names with the current signup schedule for each.

Instant Notification of Teachers. Power users often set up multiple conferences for different teachers and then—on Reports/Deadlines—put the teacher’s email down so that the teacher can receive updates on the signup schedule (and, optionally, log into the system to adjust their own schedule or other settings). Some power users have requested the ability to trigger an instant email to go to the teacher providing the access link—so they can be given access to the account even before the first signup schedule goes out.  This is now available on Reports/Deadlines (“Send an email now…” command).

Customized Ordering of Conferences on your School Web Page. Power users are creating conference webpages with large numbers of conferences, and have been asking for control over how these are organized.  Manage page now offers 3 options: “Order entered”, “Alphabetic by conference name”, or “By grade level, then alphabetic.”  Let us know if you want any other ordering options!

Faster Response Times. As we have experienced a rapid growth in usage, some users with many conferences have experienced slow responsiveness on some occasions.  New upgrades to our database handling should speed things up.  (Let us know if you run into slow performance or any other aggravations with the system—we plan further upgrades in the near future.)

As always, keep in touch with your suggestions, and let us know about your experiences with the system.  We can be reached at suggestions@ptcfast.com and support@ptcfast.com.

Ed and Mike, founders